Larry King has died
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So the director recorded a TON of footage from these moments where the politicians and news anchors acted themselves, seemingly unaware that anyone was watching.
The segments with Larry King are, um, memorable. Very candid moments.
This one's pretty good: https://youtu.be/VCUIlV-AKY4
Here's the part where the documentary explains how he got all the behind-the-scenes footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJkgQZb0VU&t=3m58s. TLDR - raw video from remote studios were first beamed via satellite to the Network's HQ for editing and "packaging". But back in those days, people with satellite boxes could intercept and view the raw pre-packaged feeds.
If you guys think "fuck it, we'll do it live" was bad, you should have seen Barbara Walters. I wish I recorded some of it. All these people in media have egos like you wouldn't believe.
Wikipedia has a good discussion on this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film)#B...
Kinda disappointing to see content like this virtually extinguished.
Actually, it may be up on YouTube in full: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uock08dy19s
I didn't understand half of what was going on in those conversations, but what stuck with me was the broad spectrum of people he interviewed and how consistently respectful he was towards his interviewees.
I linked the clip[1] below, but it may be a bit disconcerting and too soon to view for some.
I don’t identify with a fear of “not existing.” Not existing doesn’t have a negative connotation to me. It’s an absence of awareness, so who cares?
but our origin can be traced backwards forever: present day; yesterday; childhood; exiting the womb; formation in the womb; initial conception; individual cells split between two people; grandparents; formation of the elements of the solar system; beginning of the universe; etc.
Presently and onward we are also experiencing death: cells are dying and creating anew; elements breakdown and reform; etc.
In this way we can see life and death are convenience abstractions for speech, but neither are real. This is an endless process of transfiguration and change.
So what shakes me is the possibility that nonexistence and existence are an illusion, and this is just eternity
I also don't fear not existing. But I do fear the possibility of an afterlife.
I don't fear death, I fear the process of dying, I wouldn't want it to be painful or slow, but not existing, that I do not fear.
Yes, the cosmos remains intact even as the ego dies. But it seems dismissive to say the ego is less precious and can be calmly dismissed because the eternal universe which gave rise to it persists intact. It gives me no comfort at all to know that the eternal fire will always burn, and everything that constituted my fleeting ego will always exist as well. My self-awareness will be gone forever. That is a real and impending loss, although i'll be blissfully oblivious to that loss soon enough.
So I don’t usually believe what people say about themselves on this topic. Unless they’re quite old or lived through cancer or some similar situation where they had to confront their mortality, I won’t assume they know how they truly feel about their death. It’s just an idea when expressed with words, and simply thinking about it may not evoke real emotions.
But I'm always turned off by the complete lack of empathy that such folks (including you) show those of us who DO fear it. Most of folks like you don't just act like you don't fear not existing, but you actively don't understand how OTHERS can fear it.
Which makes me think one of two things: 1) The type of person who can be comfortable and this pragmatic about it is the kind of cold unfeeling unempathetic person that I simply could never be, or 2) Your cold detached pragmatic attitude is ITSELF a coping strategy for dealing with mortality. I dwell in the fear of not existing. You deal with it by pretending it's not even something worth burning an ounce of energy on.
If I'm wrong, then I'm sorry. I'd love to see you explain that you understand the fear, and then explain why you personally believe it's something you can make peace with. But every explanation I've heard so far I just haven't been able to follow.
My consciousness and awareness is all I have. When that ends, so will every dream, fantasy, feeling, emotion, hope, aspiration, joy, fear, sadness, idea, invention, and creative outlet I've ever had. And I won't have any more after that. That is objectively terrifying.
Just because it's inescapable doesn't make it any less disturbing.
That said, wanting not to die is fairly compatible with all our other beliefs and judgements. Murder is bad, for example. That's pretty compatible with not wanting to die.
Definitely more than just an off-hand comment, and, I think, quite a common fear among successful people. Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, and a handful of other tech execs have all shared how uncomfortable they are with death ("I don't understand how someone can stop existing", greatest fear is not being able to think, "death is a terrible, terrible thing", etc.).
I often ended up listening to Larry King's late night radio show. Although unlikely for the medium and time slot, he was somehow able to attract amazing guests, and I learned about a lot of things. I especially remember his interviews with Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams, which introduced me to those authors. RIP.
Someone recorded a lot of these and later published a multi-hour compilation of them on YouTube. I forget the name of that compilation, but I can tell you that the following is by far the most interesting segment from it.
When I try to tell people about this segment, they don’t believe me. They write me off as being insane. Decide for yourself. Don’t believe what the news media tells you.
Edit: DanG, why is my comment being collapsed when it has ~20 upvotes?
This has extended "serving" to broader, more casual usage when speaking about people who work for the president as you can see here. It's not "serving" like working as a servant/a billionaire doing whatever the president says in a controlling/exploitative way, it just means that Larry King thinks that Ted Turner wouldn't turn down a cabinet appointment.
You can also infer from the way King says that "what's he got left in life to gain," and Clinton's surprised "you're kidding," that they both consider this kind of service to be a major downgrade from the billionaire life - King saying here that Ted Turner has nothing left to gain indicates a separation in his mind between personal gain and working for the Clinton administration. Clinton's surprised response tells us he feels the same way, surprise that a billionaire would want to work for the president.
Very rarely you have journalism with neutral editorial lines.
Journalism isn't simply putting facts down on paper, but it's also interpreting how it affects the reader. Even if you pretend to simply write the who what when and where of a story, you still have to choose what to cover. That in and of itself has no right answer, you inevitably make an idological choice.
News Station A:
1. Heavily edited clip of political candidate saying something.
2. News anchor provides a 10 min opinion of what happened.
3. An analyst is invited to give their opinion about what happened for 30 min..
News Station B:
1. Video of what happened.
2. News anchor describes when it happened and where. No accompanying opinion is provided.
What is more neutral? News Station B, for sure. The first format is the only one available in the US, in my country that format is considered yellow journalism and is unacceptable.
Rights = Duties
Right to vote = Duty to make an informed opinion and vote wisely.
Freedom of the press = Duty to inform events with journalistic integrity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standard...
An important part of journalistic integrity is impartiality. Any news station taking sides is unethical and you should stop watching it.
What are you seeing there that's so shocking?
Then he basically says Ted Turner, founder of CNN, is a nice guy to work for and is a fan of Clinton (as if he is not allowed to be?) and could "serve you" whatever that means which I guess could be as ominous as your imagination allows but probably means in his administration.
There is zero antisemitism expressed. Only Larry King and the Israeli rabbi interested in American politics are Jewish. Clinton, Perot, and Turner are not.
The claimed outrage is absurd.
I believe qqj was saying it’s ammo for anti semites that hits those 3 accusations, not that Larry King was expressing anti semitism.
Teddy helps Billy with the optics on CNN, maybe funding various campaigns, and in turn Billy helps Teddy with his own projects, like I dunno, passing a bill to kill off competitors and so on.
The yin and yang that are Politics and Media.
The use of the word "serving" is the issue, as it sounds like a quid pro quo.
Are their people that do see the clear bias of the network?
This is like saying "Many people consider Fox news to be a "right wing" network"
There is no doubt of the political leanings of either network. CNN is/was not called Clinton News Network for nothing.....
In the 90's the bias was shown in the stories they choose to cover and what they choose to ignore not in the coverage itself
this is still true today but now in addition to this bias there is almost zero "strait" reporting, everything has political commentary mixed in, some more subtle than others but it is still there. Even in places like APnews where it is more subtle
You agree with the positions CNN takes there for it is "news" and outlets that have differing positions to those you agree with are "fake news" and "want to make the human race go backwards"
How can you be sure you’re not seeing the former and calling it the latter?
The right side is theological authoritarian, the Left side is illiberal Identitarianism which is ironic because identitarianism started out as a "far right" ideology but in a real world example of the horseshoe theory of politics has become far-left authoritarian
Went online because I heard Nasa put up pictures of Mars so the first website I went to was nasa.gov
I typed out the entire url like nasa.gov/pathfinder/images or whatever it was after seeing it on TV and writing it down. It took a while to load and then was super underwhelming. I think I searched for Sonic The Hedgehog next.
Later when we got internet at home we looked up "spelletjes" (Dutch for games) aaand ended up on a porn site. Thankfully not one with images on the front page.
Netscape Navigator 4 or something. Good times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/larry-king-is-pr...
> He has arranged to have his body frozen and then thawed out when researchers discover a cure for whatever killed him — the so-called cryonics approach. (Unlike Williams, King does not wish to have his dead head cut off.) King told me later that the people behind cryonics are ‘‘all nuts,’’ but at least if he knows he will be frozen he will die with a shred of hope. ‘‘Other people have no hope,’’ King said.
Also see his interview on Conan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7NpKG_S8g
I wonder he actually ended up signing a cryonics contract or not.
I found it an enjoyable read.
From another one, different author, same theme:
"Case, promise me one thing: when this gig is over, erase me, ok?"
In the case of Stephenson, this is counteracted a bit by Stephenson improving his craft somewhat over the years. His earlier novels all had very weak endings in my opinion, and that improved somewhat. But his never novels could use tightening.
I've always found it interesting how for most people and in most religions the hope is to be resurrected, go to heaven, and/or live forever, while in Buddhism the point is to escape the cycle of death and rebirth.
It's a completely different approach, which sees more life as something to be avoided rather than desired.
Buddha shows the path forward; I'm walking slow.
Playing SOMA might have ruined it for me...
There is pretty much zero chance that a cryopreserved individual would be revived. They're frozen when dying or dead, the process itself causes significant damage (with every mitigation just trading in a different severe form of damage), and even if future technology could undo all that and somehow make this severely damaged body somewhat operational, why in the world would anyone bother?
The person is forgotten, replaced, and has nothing in their name any more. There is no gain for those reviving them.
Source? Based on my research, no cryonic institution has failed in this manner to date.
Even now it's a fringe psuedoscience with little support or even regulation. Expecting a company to be both able and willing to pay the bill to store and freeze your body in perpetuity seems... Naïve. Looking at average company lifetimes might be a useful metric here.
I'm not sure if any actual official institutions failed in this way.
Why do people want to resurrect the woolly mammoth? ;-)
I'm sure cryo companies offer this type of safekeeping of money or investment.
Spend that on the living instead. We're already too many as is anyway, no need to also bring the dead back.
As for who would want you back ... your children, hopefully. And if there's no repair before they die ... hopefully their children would want them back. Etc.
> why in the world would anyone bother?
I think that historians in a hundred years would find opportunity to revive Larry King to be priceless.
I've had these fantasies, too and then I thought, "Why wouldn't you just leave a few cells and then have someone re-clone you?"
The obvious answer is that your memories/experiences are wiped out and what I _really_ want is to continue on with my pre-existing memories/experiences. It would be more optimal if you could pickle your memories, clone yourself and then (at some appropriate time later in life) "re-implant" the memories into your clone. I think that's what people like Larry King are really hoping for.
But then there's all sorts of problems with this (e.g., your loved ones will presumably be gone, so who's going to give a shit about your memories? etc. etc.).
The prospect of death is frightening to most of us.
This reminds me of an interesting philosophical question.
To state the obvious, even if the clone had an exact copy of your memories/experiences, that clone isn't you, you've died. If I had a teleportation machine that could "teleport" you to work by destroying you painlessly and instantly at the source location, and reconstruct you particle for particle at destination, how many would use it? I wouldn't, however irrational that may be, because "I" would be dead.
This bias is pretty interesting since by that definition we all die multiple times, as the particles that constitute our body are literally interchanging with the environment over time. But we don't feel uncomfortable about that fact.
Also known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
> This bias is pretty interesting since by that definition we all die multiple times, as the particles that constitute our body are literally interchanging with the environment over time. But we don't feel uncomfortable about that fact.
I've wondered about that, is it strictly true? Aren't there heavy metals and other elements that are accumulated in the body over time? Or at least, they are eliminated so slowly that you'd never rid yourself of them completely before dying. I guess bones replace themselves every 10 years so any incorporated metals would have a chance to be eliminated on that timescale. But what's to stop a few of those elements making their way back into another structure after being ejected into the blood stream? Maybe we've all got a few persistent cadmium or lead atoms hanging out in our bodies from birth to death. Ship of Theseus crisis averted!
Question though: when that thought experiment is applied to the physical body of a person, aren’t our cells dying and being replaced constantly? Does that mean our identity changes over time and with new experiences? (Mind blown)
Whereas in Pascal's wager you have to choose one religion, which by definition excludes other religions.
2. Many religions logically exclude other religions, i.e. if they are correct then other religions are not. This is not the case with cryopreservation, where there is a nonzero chance that more than one company may successfully resurrect you.
3. Various monotheistic religions don't accept "I think it's total bullshit but I'm going to act as if I believe it anyway" as belief (opinions vary on what exactly is required), whereas cryopreservation companies are happy to take your money regardless of what you privately think.
2. How do you revive the frozen heads from companies that couldn't pay their freezer bills three decades ago? You don't. Those heads picked the wrong company. Expecting a just god from some other religion to let you into the afterlife anyway is a common response to Pascal's wager.
3. Is the word you're looking for here "faith"? I don't think that word helps your argument. I will concede that there's probably no condition where the company unfreezes you and then kills you because you're not up to their standards. Well, unless they find those old bad reviews you left...
Which is obviously entirely different from My Religion which is Known To Be True.
At least religion offers people an excuse towards charity because ‘you can’t bring anything to the afterlife.’
I also think it's not something worth worrying about. I think it'll be decendents simulating you to learn about their history or for advice.
I'd also hope we can eliminate suffering to a greater extent in the future, for everyone.
If, and when, a real method for immortality/life extension emerges, we can jump on it.
Merely frozing a corpse with the idea of some bogus future ressurection technology (that will still retain memories etc) is wishful thinking.
Not to mention those cryo-preserves will be shut down with narry a thought in the first case of crisis...
The understanding of aging, disease, and death is progressing slowly but a few centuries of research will likely make significant discoveries.
Of the remaining important things that money can buy, I think cryogenics is a very decent gamble.
Probably the most successful at this that I'm aware of (morality aside) are the IVF doctors who use their own sperm to impregnate women.
Some with many biological children from this. Results from a quick online search:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertold_Wiesner
* https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/14/europe/jan-karbaat-fertil...
Oh, this looks relevant too and suggests some other approaches. Harem's and/or being a king seem like winners for those so inclined:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_c...
I do not remember the exact story but the idea was interesting to the 22yo me at that time (some 25 years ago)
EDIT: I think this is "The Refuge" (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheOuterLimits1...)
ETA: what I meant by ‘mind virii’ ; https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mind%20virus .. certainly wasn’t being disrespectful towards anyone’s faith.
From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind .. the vocabulary of atheism from my younger days still lingers even though I am on search mode now.
I am not a news/media elitist anymore. Things have changed in the past few years.
Some great stories in there including one about how in his early days he would play a game with his producer where he’d go in blind and try and figure out who his guest is. I guess this helped him develop his “average guy” style. While series is worth a listen if interview styles is of interest.
I wonder if they could even fulfill his wish due to covid...
For those that don't know, he was a massive baseball and Dodger fan and would sit right behind home plate. He could often be seen on TV.
He would often go to games and just sit at the bar watching from inside. Crazy but I guess he felt more comfortable there at the stadium instead of at home.
RIP Larry
I wish I had kept as up to date with all of them as I did with Larry King for the rest of his career.
RIP
Jon Stewart made fun of his interview style by writing a Larry King interview with Hitler:
The unelected experts in Government tried to do the right thing. It’s the people who were so easily misled that forced the end of regulation for dietary supplements.
Paraphrasing what Terry Pratchett said, the problem here isn’t that we have the wrong sort of government, it’s that we have the wrong sort of people.
Older me has come to see these slap fights as generational, a la Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It's a really big deal. Until it isn't. Marriage equality, cannabis legalization, banning cigarette ads, yada yada.
One of my political friends worked EIGHTEEN YEARS to pass the most modest portion of some family medical leave legislation. These reforms take tenacity, undying optimism, and no small amount of nuttiness. (Normal people choose to do more normal things.)
If you zero out everyone who ever worked for a filthy oil company, pharma, held bad beliefs, buys or sells harmful products, etc... there isn't much that's decent in the world.
High standards is a good thing, and we should strive to live our ideals but there is a gulf between our ideals and our present reality. "To hell with reality" is not a viable perspective.
If you are reborn born a pharaoh's prince tomorrow, is the only moral path fratricide?
from The Gulag Archipelago,
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.
But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
I laugh when I see so called progressives acting the same as puritanical early Americans in their infantile understanding of humanity.
Leonard Cohen's Anthem is about something similar:
Ah, the wars they will be fought again / The holy dove, she will be caught again / Bought and sold, and bought again / The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering. / There is a crack, a crack in everything / That's how the light gets
George Martin quotes a William Faulkner all the time about fictional subject matter. “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.”
It's why his fantasy stories have that gritty realism. The knights of Gondor riding against the evil horde of Sauron meme becomes parody. Good and evil is more subtle, cuts through the heart of every human being... regularly. The fantasy element is just about scale. It might be a choice between being kinda jerky and nice. Most people can be both. Novels get into a character's head. Stories where good and evil is a conflict within that head feel more real, because that's what it's like inside our heads.
Did you see the video of the chinese man beating Uygur children that were "given" to him because their parents were harvested off to whatever the fuck the chinese government are going to do to those parents.
As a father of three daughters, I would personally kill that motherfucker for what he did to those three little girls.
My actions would be an objectively GOOD thing for humanity by killing that piece of shit. His actions were objectively EVIL and if anyone can watch that video and think there is *anything* ok with it, then they are also objectively EVIL.
Statistically, that older population are the very population that votes for representatives pushing looser regulations/enforcement on businesses that enable these sort of behaviors. Representatives clearly looking out for business interests over the average voter's interest (the consumers) don't help matters.
R gets elected and proceeds to sabotage government
R: See government doesn’t work!
Example: Trump put Rick Perry in charge of the Department of Energy including our nuclear labs. Rick Perry had previously said the Department of Energy should be dismantled and should no longer exist.
Today it’s escalated... bs supplements are like a form of money laundering. How do you think every angry talk show host says the same exact thing at the same time?
"A major funder of the anti-vaccine movement has made millions selling natural health products"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2019/10/15/fdc...
(Ora Media inserting themselves into the obit so many times feels crass.)
And then an option to hide/follow a certain tag/category.